In the handkerchief
was a local paper tied with string and addressed to Mr Turnbull--
obviously meant to solace his mid-day leisure. I did up the
bundle again, and put the paper conspicuously beside it.
My boots did not satisfy me, but by dint of kicking among the
stones I reduced them to the granite-like surface which marks a
roadman's foot-gear. Then I bit and scraped my finger-nails till the
edges were all cracked and uneven. The men I was matched against
would miss no detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it in a
clumsy knot, and loosed the other so that my thick grey socks
bulged over the uppers. Still no sign of anything on the road. The
motor I had observed half an hour ago must have gone home.
My toilet complete, I took up the barrow and began my journeys
to and from the quarry a hundred yards off.
I remember an old scout in Rhodesia, who had done many queer
things in his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part
was to think yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said,
unless you could manage to convince yourself that you were it. So I
shut off all other thoughts and switched them on to the road-
mending. I thought of the little white cottage as my home, I
recalled the years I had spent herding on Leithen Water, I made my
mind dwell lovingly on sleep in a box-bed and a bottle of cheap
whisky.
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